Once Upon a Time
by devovere
Summary: Traveling Woman, Part 6. Almost dying on an away mission leads to some changes.
1. Guardian

_The premise of this series is that Samantha Wildman, designated madonna figure of Voyager, has an interior life. It isn't always pretty._

 _I wasn't a writer, until MiaCooper said I should be. Warmest thanks to her for opening that door and then beta-ing what emerged through it._

* * *

 **Chapter 1. Guardian**

I ring the Commander's office door chime precisely at 1400 hours, as planned. He calls me in and looks up from a PADD.

"Ensign Wildman, please sit down. How have you been?" He thinks I'm here for a counseling session. Well, in a way I suppose I am.

"Thank you, Commander. I'm managing. It's just good to be back and in one piece."

"I understand." I remember that he has had his own share of close calls with shuttle landings. He does understand. Except for the part that has brought me to him now.

I get right to the point. "What concerns me now is Naomi."

"Oh? Is she still upset?"

"She's working through it. She seems fine most of the time, but then she'll say something, and I know it's because she was scared I would die. She's been having nightmares."

"I'm sorry to hear that. But not surprised. Naomi is a perceptive child, and old enough now to understand certain things. Like what can happen on an away mission."

"She is. It's hard to watch. I want to comfort her and promise that I'll always come back, but I can't promise that in good faith. I know Neelix meant well and did his best with her while I was away, but … he ended up lying to her, and I'm afraid it made things worse for her in the end."

"I see. That's too bad. What can I do to help?"

Here goes nothing. "Well, given my recent brush with death …" - he winces at that - "... I've been putting my affairs in order. Just making sure that everything is in place for Naomi in case we're not so lucky next time."

"Ensign, let me assure you, there doesn't have to be a next time. You're in a special position, as the only science officer with a child on board. I'm sure Captain Janeway would agree to remove you from the rotation for away missions."

Deep breath. Why is this so hard to say, when I feel so clear about it? "No, Commander. Thank you, but that's not what I'm asking for."

He blinks, mildly surprised, sits back in his chair. "Go on."

"I'm a scientist and a Starfleet officer as well as a mother. We all know the risks when we sign up, and when we decide to have children. I don't want special treatment. I want to do the work I'm trained for, and I don't want to lose out on opportunities for advancement."

Commander Chakotay regards me calmly. His face hasn't changed, but I think I see a new respect in his eyes. And, perhaps, something else - a realization that I'm not who he thought I was.

Before I can give that impression further thought, he nods. "Thank you for helping me understand your position. How, then, can I help you with - putting your affairs in order, as you were saying?"

"I want to ask you and Captain Janeway to share guardianship of Naomi, should I die or become incapacitated."

Calm becomes still. Frozen for a moment. Then he's breathing again, and he surprises me with a smile. "Ensign Wildman. I … wasn't expecting to hear that. I'm honored, and I'm sure the captain will be as well. But why us? And who is listed as her guardian now?"

"Neelix."

"Ah."

I find I'm trembling slightly. This is harder than I thought it would be. "I love Neelix, and Naomi adores him, and he's been _so good_ to both of us all these years."

"... But?"

"He lied to her. And it wasn't only to protect her. It was because _he_ couldn't face what needed facing."

"I see."

We sit for a moment, him thinking, me watching him think.

"I do see," he says. "Neelix may be better suited to caring for younger children, than parenting older ones. And Naomi is growing up fast."

"Yes. He'll always be her favorite uncle. But I just can't see him now as her … father, for lack of a better word."

"Naomi has a father."

I blush and look down. "Yes, I'm well aware, thank you."

He starts, grimaces, apologizes. "I'm sorry, Sam - I didn't mean -"

"No, it's okay. You're right, actually. She does have a father, and I still hope very much that someday Gres will be able to play an active role in her life. And all of this guardianship problem will become moot if we get home to him before she's an adult." More words tumble out. "But for all intents and purposes, what Naomi has right now is a few holoimages and my stories about a man who doesn't know her at all." I'm trembling again, harder now.

"And a wonderful, devoted mother."

I clench my jaw shut and fight back tears. I can't speak.

"Not to mention a ship full of adults who love her and would do anything to take care of her."

That gets through to me. I look him in the eye. "Yes. That's what I'm counting on. In case."

"Yes. In case. OK. But that brings us back to - why me and the captain? Out of the whole ship?"

"Because I trust you both to make good decisions. Especially … together."

That earns me a sharp glance. All he says, and mildly, is, "Together?"

I'm not touching that with a ten-foot-pole. "You're an excellent command team, and I think it's because you balance each other's natural tendencies so well. Naomi could only benefit if you were both collaborating on any big decisions regarding her upbringing."

"Neither of us is a parent, though."

"That's true, but parents are in short supply on this ship."

I can see him listing them mentally. It doesn't take long. Voyager was staffed with a predominantly young crew for its maiden voyage. Tuvok. Mike Ayala. Joe Carey. All good men, but none is especially close to Naomi nor obviously suited to be her guardian. When his facial expression tells me he has reached the same conclusion, I continue.

"It also seems to me that as the command team has ultimate responsibility for the entire crew, it's logical to entrust you with Naomi's guardianship. I don't expect you to actually raise her - to have her live in your quarters and do the hands-on day-to-day care that a child needs. I just think you two will be in the best position at any given time to decide who will do that, along with making decisions about her medical care and education."

He nods slowly, fitting the pieces together in his mind. "Yes, I understand. My people have a tradition of fosterage, in fact. As children grow, it's not uncommon for them to spend months at a time living with extended family instead of with their parents. Voyager is the closest thing I've experienced to a village community since I was a child myself. I think that approach could work well here, if need be."

I relax. He understands what I'm proposing.

"So," he continues, "I'm honored to be asked, and I accept, provided the captain is in agreement. Have you spoken to her about this?"

"Not yet. I've made a written proposal, and I'm hoping you will read and approve it - conditionally - before she sees it." I hand him a PADD; he doesn't look at it, but considers me again, steadily.

I see again that newfound regard for me in his eyes. Neither of us acknowledges out loud that I have pursued this matter strategically, nor that this suggests I saw the commander as the softer target of the pair of them. I keep my expression blandly professional, until he treats me to an amused, full smile - dimples included. Outmaneuvered, and he knows it. I smile, thank him, and leave.


	2. Savior

**Chapter 2. Savior**

That evening, I'm in the mess hall with Naomi, having dinner. She is unusually whiny. Except, I have to admit, it's not unusual at all for the three days since I've been released from sickbay. If she's not whining about something I've asked her to do, she's either bursting into tears at the drop of a hat or, more unsettling, she's uncannily still and silent.

Right now, she is whining. She doesn't _want_ to eat her casserole before she can have pie, and she _wants_ her Flotter doll to hold her spoon and feed her. I have explained, twice over, the very familiar reasons she must ("growing food first") and may not ("you will make a mess"), and now we are simply staring at one another, at an impasse.

Her lower lip protrudes and tears well in her eyes, and suddenly she is shrieking at the top of her lungs.

"I hate you! _I hate you!_ Why did you have to come back?!"

The entire mess hall falls silent in time for her to scream, " _I WANT NEELIX!_ "

I have never seen my daughter so angry, with me or anyone else. I am so shocked that my mouth falls open as the rest of me seems to freeze. I feel a hundred eyes on both of us.

I take a deep breath and am about to scoop Naomi up to remove her to our quarters, when Neelix emerges from the galley, scurries to our table, looks reprovingly at me, and then bends down to console Naomi.

"Little one! What seems to be the trouble, now? Don't cry, sweetie; Neelix will fix it. What's the matter?"

I am outside my body, watching the tableau below me. I see myself rise from my seat, shove myself between Neelix and Naomi, grab my daughter around her ribcage, and haul her bodily from the mess hall. Neelix is at my heels, yammering away with mixed expressions of sympathy, apology, and suggestions meant to be helpful. Naomi is weeping, loudly.

Steps beyond the mess hall entrance, with the doors unluckily held wide open by a crew member standing in the doorway watching our little procession, I snap back into my body like a rubber band breaking.

"Neelix! That's enough. Thank you, but I've got this." Naomi is shocked into momentary silence.

"But Samantha, she's upset! You don't know what she went through -"

I am suddenly in his face, holding Naomi away from him. "I. _Do._ Know." I am careful not to shout, but my voice is intense, and I know my body language is overtly hostile now. " _Back off_."

I spin on my heel and stride quickly to the turbolift, which blessedly, miraculously, opens as I approach. Boarding, I glimpse Neelix in the corridor, rooted to the spot where I left him. Just before the lift doors close, I hear voices and laughter rising from the mess hall. As my fury subsides, I can feel the heat of shame staining my cheeks red. Naomi begins to whimper.

Thirty minutes later, a shaky peace has been restored in my little family. We have cuddled away the tears - mine as well as hers, to be truthful - and Naomi has had her favorite warm sweetened milk from the replicator. I've given her a quick bath and am just putting her in pajamas, when I look around her bedroom and suddenly realize that her Flotter doll didn't make it out of the mess hall in our spectacular departure.

I groan at the prospect of having to return and face so soon the witnesses to our domestic drama. But it can't be helped - Naomi needs Flotter to fall asleep. I put my shoes back on and take Naomi by the hand.

The door to our quarters slides open to reveal Joe Carey, of all people, standing with one hand poised over the chime. Naomi is quick to notice what's in his other hand.

"Flotter!" she cries happily, then surprises us both by running to hug Joe hard around the knees. We two share a bemused glance, then a smile. Then I'm laughing, and they both laugh with me.

I gesture Joe inside. Naomi takes Flotter and scampers off to her room. We are still somehow laughing and I'm in the middle of thanking Joe when somehow I'm in tears, my face in my hands, muttering, "Sorry. Sorry. I'm sorry." I can't believe I'm weeping in front of him but I can't stop and for reasons I cannot name I do not turn away from him but just stand there in the middle of the main room with my face in my hands. It feels like a long time but is probably just a few breaths, and then his large hands are on my upper arms, pulling me gently against him, and he is wrapping his long arms around me, all the way around me, encircling me in warm, calming strength. My face in my hands against his shoulder. His hand moves to the back of my head, and he just … holds me.


	3. Lover

**Chapter 3. Lover**

For many months, Joe's small new role in our life was focused on Naomi. She more or less added him to her roster of "uncles," friendly crewmen who can be counted on for a piggyback ride from lift to mess. That first night, in fact, after my tears had passed and I had stepped back from his solid, undemanding embrace, it was Naomi who emerged to take him by the hand and lead him into her bedroom, demanding a story with Flotter cast in the lead role. I was relieved. It let me sidestep a question he hadn't asked, one I wouldn't let form in my own thoughts.

He didn't seem to be interested in more. In me. He was kind to me, often appearing by my side when I was feeling frazzled with Naomi. For a while, he took to walking with us on our way to her sitter after breakfast; his presence a sort of serene buffer between us when we were still raw and finding our way back to normal after the accident … but he and I didn't touch after that first hug, and we spoke only of Naomi's care and activities, or the business of the ship.

Sometimes he made me wonder, though. I had brought Naomi to one of the ship's regular evening musical recitals. Joe was sitting in the same back row, across the aisle. As her bedtime approached, she climbed sleepily into my lap, and dozed through the second half of Harry Kim's clarinet sonata. As the adagio movement neared its end, I looked up from her peaceful slumbering face and caught Joe gazing at us, tenderness and longing written all over his face. As our eyes met, instead of looking away, he swallowed visibly and held my gaze another moment, until the pause between the sonata's movements made us both aware of the other audience members' quiet presence around us.

Twenty minutes later, Naomi was so soundly asleep that even the closing applause and shouts of "Bravo!" didn't rouse her. I was just starting to wonder if I was still strong enough to carry my ever-growing child across the ship when Joe approached us and held out his arms silently to take Naomi. I gratefully allowed him to lift her from my lap. She whimpered sleepily but settled quickly, arms wrapped around his neck.

As we left the holodeck, among the last of the thinning crowd to do so, he smiled sadly at me and said, "The last time I saw my younger son, he was just this size." Both his hands were cradling Naomi to his slim chest. I silently laid one hand on his upper arm. We walked that way for just a few steps, but it was enough, somehow, to build another bridge between us.

Not that night, but not long after, he visited us in the evening, at Naomi's invitation. She and I had saved replicator credits to celebrate her half-birthday. Her full birthdays were a big public celebration, but I felt the need to mark each half-year point as well, since she grew so rapidly. We were having hot fudge sundaes, and Naomi wanted Uncle Joe to be there. I hoped Neelix would not hear of it but suspected he would, and sighed internally. He was on my mind when Joe arrived, and so I was struck anew by the contrast between the two men. Where Neelix would push, Joe simply … accepted. He never undermined my authority with Naomi, never sought to make her life about him. Where Neelix needed to be made to feel needed, Joe simply seemed content to be in our space.

I let Naomi stay up late, in her pajamas, since I was off duty the next day. After I'd cleaned up the mess from the sundaes, I found Naomi sitting in Joe's lap, as he read books to her. It made me smile. She could read them herself by that point, but they were both obviously taking pleasure in this ritual of young childhood. I settled on the other end of the couch with a PADD and listened with half an ear to the stories I knew by heart. Joe read the various characters with different voices, hamming it up for a giggling Naomi, sometimes teasing her by deliberately skipping a page or getting the words wrong, whereupon she would mock-wail, "Noooooo Uncle Joe, you're _reading_ it wrong!" After a time, as she cranked up higher, I could hear the sugar crash about to happen, and intervened.

"OK, Naomi - it's time for bed now. Say thank you to Joe for coming and for reading to you, and go brush your teeth."

Joe closed the book with a snap and a wink, lifted Naomi from his lap, and pointed her towards the bathroom. Again it occurred to me that Neelix likely would have wheedled as hard as Naomi was now doing for "just one more story, pleeeeease!" I smiled at them, but even Naomi could see that I was approving of Joe, not softening towards her. Outnumbered, she gave in with remarkably good grace for a three-and-a-half-year-old, even a half-Ktarian one, and made only one eminently reasonable demand: that Uncle Joe tuck her in. He looked my way for permission and I smiled again and nodded.

Alone for a minute, I made tea. Two mugs. I returned to the couch, placed Joe's tea on the end table, and sat with my own mug. That way, I thought, he had the choice to leave or stay. He emerged from her bedroom, and I saw him see me and then notice the other mug. He didn't stand and ponder, but sat down with me and picked up his tea, as if we did this every night.

We made small talk for a few minutes. Then he started telling me about his family. How he had met his wife, Anne. How they had managed to have two sons around his often-lengthy starship assignments. What his boys were like, what he recalled from their early childhoods. How much being around Naomi and me brought those days back to life for him, how in truth it gave him both pleasure and pain, in a combination he would not alter if he could. He spoke easily of these things in a way that only made me feel glad he was telling me, grateful for his confidence. He made no demands, only gifts of his past life.

We parted that night with a hand squeeze, and life continued on. But he'd left me with a lot to think about. Gres was much less in my thoughts now than he had been in the early years of our journey. But when I did think of him, it was always with a grief and longing that could crush me if I dwelt on it.

Part of that, I knew, was about Naomi. When we'd briefly had the use of the Hirogen relay network, a year and a half previously, Gres had been notified of my survival and Naomi's existence. But based on the short letter he'd been able to write and send me then, he knew almost nothing about us beyond those bare facts. I could not imagine the torment of knowing he had a daughter, but knowing nothing of her life beyond her name and the fact that she was a lifetime's hazardous travel away. My heart hurt for him, the father of my child, every time I thought of him.

There was something, though, in the way Joe had spoken to me of Anne, that stayed with me. He missed her, clearly. It had been obvious to me almost from the first night with Flotter that Joe's loneliness for his family was most of what drew him to us. He missed his wife, and he was sad to be apart from her and their sons. But what I had not heard in his voice that evening was … anguish. No bitterness, no guilt. A hard thing, a very hard thing had happened to all of them, and now he was making the best of it, and doing his best every day by the ship, the crew, the mission.

He hoped to return, to be reunited with his family. But it didn't consume him, nor sap the spirit from his life here, and that somehow freed him to share that part of his life with me now. It was strange, but felt very correct, that in this way, hearing about his wife could bring him and me closer together, could drop a wall rather than throw one up.

A week later, I asked Joe to come over for tea at 2100 hours. He knew Naomi's bedtime was 1930, and in this way I hoped he would perceive that this was about us, not another Uncle Joe visit. I knew he had gotten the message when he arrived wearing civilian clothing. We were shifting gears, moving into a new space. Trying to. Considering it, at least.

I was nervous. I had rehearsed a little speech, trying to tell him how honored I'd felt when he'd told me about his family, and how much I admired his acceptance of the situation. He listened patiently to my slight stammering through safe and polite phrases, allowed me to finish, and then looked at me, and said simply, "Sam. What's on your mind, then? Talk to me."

I blurted it out. "I still love Gres. I miss him and I want to return to him."

He let those words ring in the air for a moment, making sure we'd both heard them. Then he said, "We're in the same boat then, you and I. And so we're both lonely." A beat, as he searched for words. "I think we can keep on, loving them and missing them, without staying lonely."

I searched his face. I hated feeling suspicious. Or was it just … defensive? Was I just projecting my own fears onto him?

"Sam, your face is like watching a holovid with the audio off. Out with it. Just talk to me."

"Before, when you and Anne were apart, did you … stay lonely?" There was a tinge of hardness in my voice. Even so, he answered without a pause.

"I always missed her. But I was never lonely, somehow. Knowing when the assignment would end, when we would be together again - that was always enough for me. I can't truthfully say I resisted temptation, Sam, because I never felt the need then."

"Is that what this feels like now, to you? Temptation?"

He reached out, stroked my hair, caressed my ear and neck. I closed my eyes, trying not to shiver. There was a hunger in his eyes that I hadn't seen anyone turn my way in a very long time. But then he masked it and let his hand drop away from me.

"It feels like _need_. I want you, Sam. But the question you need to be asking is what _you_ feel this is, between us, and what it would mean, for yourself and for Gres."

I was silent for a time. He waited. He's a patient man, Joe Carey is.

Finally I offered up my last remaining fear. "Naomi would know. Others would find out. This couldn't stay a secret."

At that he smiled, a big slow smile. "Whyever would I want it to? I could never be ashamed of being close to you."

His words rolled over me like a wave. My eyes closed in the face of that simple truth, a truth he had named for us both. I wondered if he knew. My breath came deep and I could not find my voice, but I looked up at him with thanks and wonder in my eyes, and he saw.

He didn't push, and I didn't pull, and after a minute, he said goodnight and left. I stayed on the couch, thinking, for a long time that night.

The next time Joe is in our quarters at Naomi's bedtime, I ask him to tuck her in. I make two mugs of tea and place one on the end table. When he returns to the main room, he catches my gaze, holds it, stands waiting. I set my own mug down and hold out a hand to him. He takes it.

Very little changes in my life, but at the same time, from that point forward, everything is different.


End file.
